The Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission, Mahmood Yakubu, has warned not to accept candidates who did not emerge through democratic nomination processes.
This as many of the 18 political parties in the country adopted direct primaries in the election of their candidates.
The deadline for the conduct of political party primaries elapsed on Thursday, June 9.
Yakubu, who stated this at a meeting with Resident Electoral Commissioners, RECs, in Abuja on Thursday, warned political parties not to submit names of such candidates.
Read also: INEC fixes dates for 2023 General election campaign activities
On the nomination process, Yakubu said, “Turning to the nomination of candidates by political parties for the 2023 general election, all primaries end on Thursday, June 9, 2022.
He reminded political parties not to submit candidates without running mates, saying such nominations would out rightly be declared invalid.
According to him, ”For the next one week from June 10, 2022, all political parties are required to submit their list of candidates for national elections (presidential/vice presidential, senatorial and House of Representatives) latest by Friday, June 17, 2022.
”For state elections (governorship/deputy governorship and State Houses of Assembly), the list of candidates shall be uploaded from July 1 to 15, 2022, as already provided in the timetable and schedule of activities for the 2023 general election already released by the commission.
”All political parties are required to upload the details of their candidates for each constituency to the INEC Candidate Nomination Portal, ICNP. To achieve this objective, four officials recommended by each of the 18 political parties were trained on the procedure for uploading the nomination forms to the dedicated web portal. Confidential Access Codes to the portal have already been given to each Political Party to facilitate the uploading of its nominations.”
He noted ”For emphasis, the Commission wishes to remind Political Parties that only the names of candidates that emerged from democratic primaries as provided by Section 84 of the Electoral Act 2022 shall be submitted to the Commission.
”Similarly, the list of all Presidential and Governorship candidates must be accompanied by the names of their running mates (i.e. Vice Presidential and Deputy Governorship candidates) without which the nomination is invalid. All nominations must be uploaded to the portal on/or before the deadlines.
”The portal will automatically shut down at 6.00 p.m (1800hrs) on Friday, 17th June, 2022 for national elections and 6.00 p.m. (1800hrs) on Friday, 15th July, 2022 for State elections. With this innovation, the Commission has eliminated the physical interface between party officials and INEC staff for the purpose of submitting the list of candidates for the 2023 General Election.
”A Nomination Centre has been set up here at the Commission’s Headquarters to receive and process all nominations by political parties, including dedicated telephone lines to serve as Help Desk for any Party that may need assistance.
”In our avowed commitment to openness and transparency of the process, the media will be invited to the Nomination Center so that Nigerians will see our level of preparedness for the exercise”.
Criteria for voting in 2023 general elections
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The Accreditation is going to be purely, wholly, and totally Electronic. (Section 18 and 19).
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If the BVAS Technology fails to complete the accreditation of a voter, the voter cannot participate in the Election. (Section 20)
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If there happen to be a wilful obstruction or resistance to the use of the BVAS Device in some of the polling units, such polling units shall be credited with zero votes during collation. (Section 100-ii)
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What should now be determining the inconclusiveness of elections is no more the total number of registered voters in the affected polling units, but the total number of PVCs that were collected in the affected polling units.
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If the number of recorded votes is greater than the number of the Accredited Voters (that is, as recorded inside the BVAS Device), then the Elections in such affected Polling-Units is regarded as voided Elections. (Section 40)
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If the BVAS Device continues to malfunction, it should be replaced. And if it wouldn’t be replaced within the day of the Election, then the Election in the affected Polling-Unit should be postponed to continue the following day. (Section 23).
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Even though there is going to be Electronic Collations and Electronic Transmissions (Section 38), there should also be Manual Collations and Manual Transmissions (Section 48) . The Electronically Collated Results would be used to check and verify the manually collated results before they are announced. (Section 51)
Henceforth, the Electronically Collated Results and the Electronically Transmitted Results from each levels of the electoral process, both voting and collation, as well as all the data as contained in the BVAS Device, will play important roles in the final results declared by the INEC.
